Week 46

Okay I am running out of time again this week. I am going to have to do some more catch up next week. This is crazy!

Quick update!

Keysi is still doing so well! She came to church for the first time yesterday and it was so amazing! One of the speakers in Sacrament Meeting spoke on a trial that he faced that is almost identical to a trial that Keysi's family is facing right now. Coincidence? Absolutely not.

We have been praying really hard and working really hard to find a family to teach. We had an amazing Zone Conference this last week and President Christiansen was able to share some thoughts from the New Mission President Seminar that he attended before coming into the field about 9 weeks ago. It was AMAZING! I know the Apostles are just that: Apostles of the Lord! They are so inspired! I also know that President Christiansen is called of God! The work is hastening and we are just trying to keep up.

Well, I have got to get going, but I love you all and thank you for everything you do for my companion and I!

Love,

Sister Lewis

Week 45: One of my Favorite Sciptures

"And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall."

-Helaman 5:12

I know this is true. If we build our foundation on Christ, nothing can ever make us fall!

No time left, sorry!

This week was awesome. My new companion Sister Moore is awesome. You are awesome. The gospel is awesome!

Love you!

Love,

Sister Lewis

Week 44

I will start off with transfer information. I am staying in good ol' Woody Woodstock and Sister Tripple is off to Pasadena. Wait...I thought I was serving in Maryland. Hehe there's a Pasadena in Maryland near Annapolis. Being from Haiti and living on a float house in Alaska for the last five years, she is excited to see the water again!

This week we got to see Keysi twice before she skirted off to South Carolina for the weekend. The lesson we had with her on Thursday went really well! We taught her about the Plan of Salvation using an analogy about summer music camp. It was a lot of fun and she loved the analogy because she loves music. We had Whitney with us (Hannah's return missionary sister) and they hit it off really well. Whitney is such a good teacher so it's always good to have her there! Keysi is going to pray about a date to be baptized which we will talk about when we see her tomorrow. It should go really well!

On Thursday, we were able to help a less-active member of our ward, Pam, set up a tent for the Shenandoah Valley annual yard crawl. It's basically the most insane yard sale ever. They have hundreds of tents and booths set up all along Route 11 from Stephens City, VA to New Market, VA. It. is. crazy. Anyway, we helped her set up and she appreciated it so much and invited us to come to lunch with her tomorrow! We were so excited! Even more exciting was when we found out from a sister in the ward that Pam had expressed how impressed she was with Sister Tripple and I and she had told her she was taking us to lunch. The sister was floored! She never connects with missionaries! Needless to say, the Lord has been in it!

On Saturday we decided to contact some people on the street during the yard crawl and I had a pretty fun experience...haha. We saw a man and a woman handing out religious literature on the street corner and told them we would swap. They turned out to be Baptist. It was fine...until the woman went to get their pastor from across the street. Oh my lanta. I will spare you all of the details but basically I found out that there aren't going to be any Mormons in heaven. Haha...that was fun.

Well I am out of time but that was pretty much it anyway! I will see you on the flip side! Thank you for everything!

Love,

Sister Lewis

 

 

 

Week 43

This week was crazy fast! Like faster than a cheetah. Haha...

Aaanyway, we started off the week with some service with a member of our ward who has the sweetest garden ever! If the Second Coming happens before I have time to get a good garden going, I'm coming back to Woodstock because seriously everyone has a garden haha! We helped this sister peel peaches and talked to her about the Atonement. There is no gospel topic that I love more. The Atonement is incredible! The Atonement saves us, it brings us comfort, it redeems us, it brings us forgiveness, it lifts our burdens. The Atonement is the figurative key to our happiness. Again, the Atonement is incredible!

On Tuesday, we taught Keysi! It was awesome!! When we first started teaching Keysi, we felt impressed that we should invite a young woman in our ward who was going to be starting home school this year to come with us to teach Keysi. We thought they would connect really well. So, Tuesday was miraculously the only day that Hannah (the young woman) could come to a lesson. She came with us to teach Keysi about the Restoration. Okay... Miracle 1) Keysi felt the Spirit so strongly during that lesson it was amazing! She completely accepted Joseph Smith as a prophet as soon as we shared his experience in seeing God the Father and Jesus Christ. She knew he was a prophet right away. Miracle 2) We invited her to be baptized on August 22 and she said yes! Miracle 3) Keysi and Hannah connected immediately and Keysi was so excited to be friends with her and have her to count on in high school. Miracle 4) Keysi was a fulfillment of a promise given to Hannah in a priesthood blessing months earlier. Miracle 5) Hannah decided to go to public school with Keysi instead of home school! That was the most amazing lesson that I have been blessed to be a part of. Holy cow!

We met with Keysi again on Wednesday and taught her about the Book of Mormon. She loves the Book of Mormon and is so excited to read it! We asked her how she thought the Book of Mormon would help her and she said, "Well, it's going to give me what's missing from the Bible." What?!? (For those who don't know, after Christ and his apostles were martyred, many truths were taken and lost from the Bible. The Bible is now incomplete, not because it isn't holy, but because men have made it so over thousands of years. We believe King James version of the Bible to be the most correct version of the Bible.) She is so prepared!

On Thursday we met a set of twins named Naomi and Gina! They are so cute! Their family is not super interested in religion, but they want to come to activities and stuff. We are hoping and praying that their hearts will be softened as they have brief but powerful experiences learning about gospel truths at activities. They came to our missionary sport night on Friday and got to learn about baptism! It was awesome!

This week we also saw a member of our ward named Sis Clark who has been having some health issues recently, and with lots of prayer and lots of faith, she was doing so much better this week. So much better, in fact, that she was able to return to work and church this week! Sis is the greatest example of faith to me. As she has reviewed priesthood blessings she has received (including her patriarchal blessing) her faith has increased that her health would improve, and as such, it has!

We are hoping to start teaching the granddaughter of a member of our ward. The granddaughter's name is Megan and she is extremely humble! We are excited to start teaching her!

We went to the temple this week, which was incredible as always! At the temple I was reminded that we are not supposed to do things alone. We are here together for a reason. Let's work together to share what we know is true! We aren't all full-time missionaries, but we can all be missionaries full time! Also, I will include more of my typical pictures of the temple  How grateful I am for the eternal ordinances that happen in that building. We can be with our families forever, and it's all because of the Atonement! Death has no sting, the grave has no victory!

Well, I love y'all and thank you for everything you do! Prayers, support, and love goes a long, long way in this work!

Love,

Sister Lewis